second season syndrome
“We hope he doesn’t get second season syndrome”
At a preseason event, my Head Coach Graham Dawe described me like this to the assembled crowd. I'd been the team's top try scorer and young player of the year in my first season at Plymouth Albion. I'd had the possibility of a move away from Plymouth to a better team but circumstances dictated that I was back for a second season.
Rather than be disheartened, I'd spent my offseason partying for a week or so before knuckling down to some hard physical work. I wanted to come back bigger, faster, stronger, determined to get on to the next level of professional rugby and to be fair, I had. I was winning power tests, sprint sessions, playing great in training and was excited to be back. I'd had great fun in my first year and was primed to be better this time around.
I scored one try all year. In the last game of the season.
I got a lot of banter from the boys throughout the year and even from a supporter I met in a bar who had me in a sweepstake to predict the top try scorer. I'd seemed a good bet at the outset!
The fact I was getting banter and still getting picked to my mind, showed that I was actually performing for the team. If my value was only measured in tries, I'd have been out of the lineup pretty quickly. I felt I was more important to the team than the previous year and one of our most dangerous players; I just wasn't scoring any tries. Our team was worse than the year before, losing tight games that we might previously have won and having lost a few players due to the usual round of departures allied to some budget cuts.
But I had scored a paltry one try. Was I doomed from the moment Graham raised the spectre of second season syndrome? Did it become a self-fulfilling prophecy? Was it just bad luck? Did second season syndrome even happen?
Second Season Syndrome is commonly invoked in Premier League football when a team is promoted from the Championship and enjoys a successful debut year. There's little expectation beyond trying to avoid relegation and that can be both a unifying and freeing experience for a team. If you're not expected to win, you can play with a certain level of devil may care. When allied to the siege mentality that is a natural quality of the underdog, it can be a dangerous combination for opponents who are expected to win.
Wolves and Sheffield United have recently bucked the second season downturn trend but there's the famous example of Ipswich, qualifying for the UEFA Cup in their first season and relegated in their second. There are some examples here to save me belabouring the point.
Leicester City had a sort of second season syndrome upon winning the title. Their underdog identity was hard to carry off the year after when they carried the tag of champions and they endured a far more torrid year, even if they had a good run in the Champions' League.
“I didn’t want to play it boring and safe. I also didn’t want to innovate too much. Second albums, man, they’re even scarier than first ones.”
Sport is of course not the only arena where second season syndrome is something of an albatross. The difficult second album is a classic trope in music. A band crashes into the consciousness with a brilliant debut and, under pressure from labels, fans and themselves to follow it up while the iron's hot, they turn in something disappointing.
That first album is often the culmination of an entire musical life. Years have technically gone into the album, with the best ideas that act or individual has ever had being appropriated in its service. When they're faced with a blank slate, expectant stakeholders and a ticking clock, it's hard to drum up something of similar quality.
One of my favourite bands growing up was The Strokes who released an epochal first album in Is This It. Expectations were sky high for the followup Room on Fire and their singer, Julian Casablancas said:
"I feel like I will break under the pressure that I put on myself. What if a critic, or the general consensus says, 'He really let us down this time'? That would fuck with my head and hurt me. But if I knew it was true, that would hurt me 10 times more."
The critics were relatively kind to Room on Fire, being mostly positive with the general consensus that it was very similar to Is This It. Perhaps The Strokes played it too safe and missed a chance to innovate a little. I still enjoyed it but it’s fair to say that I didn’t love it like I did the first.
How can you manage this well? I think you need to strike the balance between innovation and familiarity. There needs to be a sense of progression without you throwing out what made you stand out in the first place.
If you're an athlete, you need to pick up a new trick, perhaps innovating on some of your strengths to defy expectations. Teams will prepare for you specifically so you can figure our a way to confound their analysis. Think about your go to manoeuvres in certain situations and add a next step, learn a feint or even plan something with a teammate. Adding variety will only make your core strengths more effective as a defender or opponent will be more uncertain after their analysis, not less.
If you're an artist, perhaps find an unfamiliar input. Think like Rick Rubin and consume a load of new influences and see what resonates with you. Or go as far away from your original work as you can and try to forge a link back to it.
I'm currently deciding on what my next big project will be and am struggling somewhat for clarity, not lack of ideas. Something that's been of use to me was this:
“Think of your creative life as a patchwork of projects”
I'm not satisfied with my first piece of work, nor will it set me up for life. What I want to do is create a patchwork, to have variety, to not churn out the same things. It's why a more traditional journalism has never appealed to me. I want to experiment with different mediums and form, not to have to do the same thing, even if writing will probably remain the bedrock of what I do.
The one thing that's certain is that remaining the same will bring diminishing returns. Celebrate success, regroup, find something that excites, then go again. Forward motion is the only solution.